BANGLADESH INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AND STRATEGIC STUDIES

POWER BALANCING AGAINST THE RISING RIVALS IN ASIA: A DYADIC-STRUCTURAL EXPLANATION

Author: Md. Muhibbur Rahman

DOI Link: https://www.doi.org/10.56888/BIISSj2018v39n1a5

ABSTRACT

Why do some states balance against a rising power while others prefer not to, despite facing redistribution of power alike? How does a state select partner in a balancing situation? In the context where second-tier states have little incentive to go for balancing against the United States (US) in the post-Cold War international system, this article primarily seeks to develop a dyadic structural explanation of balancing behaviour in the Asian regional subsystem. It argues that shifts in power distribution within a regional subsystem in favour of a state does not necessarily lead to power balancing on the part of other states. An intervening variable, the existence of enduring rivalries, plays a key role in this process. Rivalries create institutionalized adversarial propensities and provide stable decisional leverage to balancing. It also argues that rivalries determine alliance preferences and the magnitude of balancing. However, contemporary balancing trends in Asia lack formal alliance formation, contrary to the expectation of the main argument in this article. To explain this additional puzzle, the article develops the concept of interdependent multipolarity that characterizes the distribution of power in the post-Cold War Asia. To systematically account for the effect of rivalries on balancing, it tries to explore how the selected dyadic rivals are responding to the rising powers in Asia, and what factors are shaping their decisions.